Freeze In Brazil Puts Heat On Coffee Prices

Streets would be filled with people so irritable they could pick up Juan Valdez's mule and toss it over the counter at Dunkin Donuts.

Hotels might benefit, however, with special wings designated for those trying to kick the habit. Special cappuccino counselors could be provided.

So hey, you with the mug out there, wake up and smell the coffee: Prices are going up.

And if you're one of those who needs that morning jolt of java or craves a mid-afternoon rendezvous with a drink of the chocolate hazelnut persuasion, you soon may find yourself choosing between paying more for that indulgence or doing without.

In coffee haunts around Hartford, the consensus of most coffee drinkers is that they're willing to pay the price.< ``If the price were $1,000 a can, I'd buy it,'' said Edward Stockton, former state commissioner of economic development.

Coffee prices have been rising since April, climbing in response to concern that poor weather and pests were reducing the supply.

But after a weekend frost in Brazil that damaged an estimated quarter of the coffee crop, the price of coffee for future delivery soared, rising more than 25 percent Monday, the largest one-day increase in more than seven years.

It is now early winter in Brazil, the No. 1 coffee-producing country, and the big effect of the recent freeze will be on coffee beans harvested next year. But it hasn't taken long for coffee that's heralded to be good to the last drop to react to the worst of the next crop.

Philip Morris Cos.' General Foods subsidiary that makes Maxwell House, and Procter & Gamble, which markets Folgers, are raising their prices 35 to 40 cents for a 13-ounce can. Apart from the frost, wholesale prices had been rising steadily since January, because of increased consumer demand driven a new interest in gourmet coffee lines.

``There's been a surge in demand because of places like mine all across the country,'' said Peter Brainard, owner of Peter B's Espresso, a West Hartford specialty coffee shop. ``There was a 40 percent jump in green bean [unroasted] prices. The first week in June, my buying cost went up 15 percent.''

Brainard gets the beans for his gourmet coffees from Indonesia, Ethiopia and Colombia rather than Brazil. He thinks supermarket coffee sales will be more affected the recent events than a shop such as his, but he's not worried that people will give up their coffee.

``It's a small-time luxury people hang onto,'' he said.

Sipping coffee at tables outside Peter B's Wednesday morning, Carol Paydos a registered nurse from Bloomfield, and Selma Searfoss, a social worker from Farmington, had no plans to cut back on coffee.

``My husband told me yesterday: `Futures on coffee are going up, you better stock up,' '' Searfoss said. ``He won't be able to get out of the house until he has his cup of coffee.''

Coffee devotee Peter Gioia, director of research for the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, who is a 15-cup-a-day man, and Stockton, a four-cup-a-day man, happened to meet in the atrium of the Hartford Civic Center, and shared their personal coffee futures.

Gioia said he had no intention of cutting back on his 5,475 cups a year, and Stockton, who runs the economic consulting firm Stockton Associates, divulged that he planned to visit a large supermarket that night to buy 10 cans.

``Oh, these substance abusers,'' said John Carson, president of the Connecticut Policy and Economic Council Inc., about his economist comrades. He will gladly eschew his brew and drink lemonade and Snapple instead.

Carson was aghast that Stockton would take part in a coffee-can panic.

``Here is a former commissioner of economic development, a learned economist, joining the maddening herd,'' Carson said.

Carson predicted that prices may go up for a while but, unlike in other recessions, they'll come right back down.

``This is not an era of price increases sticking when the demand falls off,'' he said.

Scott Phelps, president of the Greater Hartford Convention and Visitors Bureau, was on his way to On a Roll, a sandwich shop at the civic center, to get his late-morning coffee.

``I'll find a way,'' Phelps said, when asked whether he'd keep up his coffee consumption. ``There are certain things you have to have. I start in the early morning and don't stop 'til mid-afternoon.''

Amid all these coffee junkies, one man drinking a cup of coffee found that all this coffee price talk was raising his irritability level.

``It's outrageous, an absolute crying shame,'' said Leon Gouin of Asheville, N.C., who was visiting his daughter in West Hartford. ``There's a so-called freeze in Brazil and the next day companies start raising their prices. It shows you the greed of these companies.''

``I just might stop drinking coffee as a protest,'' said Gouin, a four- to five-cup-a-day man.

Peter Briggs, executive vice president for Smith Barney Shearson in New London and a futures trader, offered a defense for the coffee companies.

``It sounds like gouging,'' he said. ``But it's American capitalism at work.''

``Some people will stop drinking coffee,'' Briggs said. ``And coffee growers and traders in New York will make a lot of money.''

Coffee drinker Ann Howard had just finished her morning ritual in front of her West Hartford shop, Ann Howard Cookery, when asked for her reaction to companies raising coffee prices.

``Is it because it's gotten so popular they couldn't resist?'' she asked.